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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Why I - And Many Other Southerners - Still Honor Confederate Memorial Day

Credit: Columbus State University Archives
Here's a trivia question for armchair historians: Was the first
Memorial Day celebrated in Columbus, Georgia, or Columbus, Mississippi?
According to strict calendric interpretation, Columbus, Mississippi,
celebrated the holiday first, on April 25, 1866, but only because
newspaper editors fudged the date, said Richard Gardiner, an associate
professor of history education at Columbus State University in Georgia,
and co-author of "The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday" (Columbus
State University, 2014).
Columbus, Georgia, where the concept of honoring the soldiers who died
in the American Civil War originated, celebrated it a day later, on
April 26, 1866, along with dozens of other cities, Gardiner said. [6 Civil War Myths, Busted]
Columbus, Mississippi, may have celebrated Memorial Day first, but
"what's not true is that they came up with the idea," Gardiner told Live
Science.
In fact, there are many contenders for where Memorial Day started. Some
say it started in Waterloo, New York, in 1866, and President Lyndon B.
Johnson even signed a proclamation
saying so in 1966. But historians have since discredited that claim,
Gardiner said. Still, some people still trumpet the claim, including the village of Waterloo itself.
Here's why: In the 1880s, a reporter interviewed a source who thought
that Waterloo celebrated the day in 1866, but the newspaper later ran a
correction saying it was actually 1868. Still, not every newspaper that
ran the story included the correction, leading some people to think that
Waterloo was the first to celebrate the holiday that Americans call
Memorial Day, Gardiner said.
Others, including David Blight, a professor of history at Yale
University, say the first Memorial Day happened in Charleston, South
Carolina, according to The New York Times.
On May 1, 1865, workmen honored and buried dead soldiers from the Union
Army at a racetrack that had been turned into a war prison, Blight told
The New York Times.
However, there's no evidence that this event sparked the national
holiday, Gardiner said. People have honored dead soldiers and decorated
their graves since the beginning of time, he added.
"It's not a question of who was the first person to decorate a grave," Gardiner said. "That does not create a holiday."

How Memorial Day started

Memorial Day's date has changed over the years, but the very first holiday was planned for April 26, 1866, in the wake of the American Civil War.
In January 1866, the Ladies' Memorial Association in Columbus, Georgia,
passed a motion agreeing that they would designate a day to throw
flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers buried at the cemetery,
Gardiner said.
However, the ladies didn't want this to be an isolated event, so Mary
Ann Williams, the group's secretary, wrote a letter and sent it to
newspapers all over the United States.
"You'll find that letter in dozens of newspapers," Gardiner said. "It
got out, and it was republished everywhere in the country."
In the letter, the ladies asked people to celebrate the war's fallen soldiers on April 26 — the day the bulk of Confederate soldiers surrendered in North Carolina in 1865.
"That's what many people in the South considered to be the end of the
war," Gardiner said. Even though Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered on April
9, "there were still90,000 people ready to fight. And until those
90,000 surrendered on April 26, the war was effectively still going on,"
Gardiner said. [Album: Faces and Injuries of the Civil War]
But the date wasn't printed correctly in every newspaper, which led
Columbus, Mississippi, to celebrate the holiday a day earlier, on April
25. Despite the mix-up, Columbus, Mississippi, is often credited as the
birthplace of Memorial Day, Gardiner said.
In one of his 2010 weekly addresses,
President Barack Obama said just that: "On April 25, 1866, about a year
after the Civil War ended, a group of women visited a cemetery in
Columbus, Mississippi, to place flowers by the graves of Confederate
soldiers who had fallen at Shiloh," he said.
Gardiner said, "I don't contest that. But the evidence is abundantly
clear that they were simply following what the newspaper had suggested
that they do." Rather, it was the women of Columbus, Georgia, who
thought of the idea, he said.

Flowers for all

On April 26, 1866, people across the South heeded Williams' letter and
threw flowers on the graves of Civil War soldiers. Some Southern women
noticed that Yankee graves, interspersed with the graves of their loved ones, sat untended, Gardiner said.
"They start to see these Union graves that are just laying there, kind
of barren," he said. "Their hearts are warmed. Their hearts start to
feel bad for the mothers who have lost these children. So, they start to
throw flowers on the Yankee graves. And then that story gets published
everywhere."
- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/54919-true-story-behind-first-memorial-day.html#sthash.01gkZPos.dpuf

Why I -- And Many Other Southerners -- Still Honor Confederate Memorial Day

By: C.W. Roden

The following is the short story and the war service record of my paternal great-great-grandfather, Sergeant Jackson S. Roden.

Credit: Columbus State University Archives
Here's a trivia question for armchair historians: Was the first
Memorial Day celebrated in Columbus, Georgia, or Columbus, Mississippi?
According to strict calendric interpretation, Columbus, Mississippi,
celebrated the holiday first, on April 25, 1866, but only because
newspaper editors fudged the date, said Richard Gardiner, an associate
professor of history education at Columbus State University in Georgia,
and co-author of "The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday" (Columbus
State University, 2014).
Columbus, Georgia, where the concept of honoring the soldiers who died
in the American Civil War originated, celebrated it a day later, on
April 26, 1866, along with dozens of other cities, Gardiner said. [6 Civil War Myths, Busted]
Columbus, Mississippi, may have celebrated Memorial Day first, but
"what's not true is that they came up with the idea," Gardiner told Live
Science.
In fact, there are many contenders for where Memorial Day started. Some
say it started in Waterloo, New York, in 1866, and President Lyndon B.
Johnson even signed a proclamation
saying so in 1966. But historians have since discredited that claim,
Gardiner said. Still, some people still trumpet the claim, including the village of Waterloo itself.
Here's why: In the 1880s, a reporter interviewed a source who thought
that Waterloo celebrated the day in 1866, but the newspaper later ran a
correction saying it was actually 1868. Still, not every newspaper that
ran the story included the correction, leading some people to think that
Waterloo was the first to celebrate the holiday that Americans call
Memorial Day, Gardiner said.
Others, including David Blight, a professor of history at Yale
University, say the first Memorial Day happened in Charleston, South
Carolina, according to The New York Times.
On May 1, 1865, workmen honored and buried dead soldiers from the Union
Army at a racetrack that had been turned into a war prison, Blight told
The New York Times.
However, there's no evidence that this event sparked the national
holiday, Gardiner said. People have honored dead soldiers and decorated
their graves since the beginning of time, he added.
"It's not a question of who was the first person to decorate a grave," Gardiner said. "That does not create a holiday."

How Memorial Day started

Memorial Day's date has changed over the years, but the very first holiday was planned for April 26, 1866, in the wake of the American Civil War.
In January 1866, the Ladies' Memorial Association in Columbus, Georgia,
passed a motion agreeing that they would designate a day to throw
flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers buried at the cemetery,
Gardiner said.
However, the ladies didn't want this to be an isolated event, so Mary
Ann Williams, the group's secretary, wrote a letter and sent it to
newspapers all over the United States.
"You'll find that letter in dozens of newspapers," Gardiner said. "It
got out, and it was republished everywhere in the country."
In the letter, the ladies asked people to celebrate the war's fallen soldiers on April 26 — the day the bulk of Confederate soldiers surrendered in North Carolina in 1865.
"That's what many people in the South considered to be the end of the
war," Gardiner said. Even though Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered on April
9, "there were still90,000 people ready to fight. And until those
90,000 surrendered on April 26, the war was effectively still going on,"
Gardiner said. [Album: Faces and Injuries of the Civil War]
But the date wasn't printed correctly in every newspaper, which led
Columbus, Mississippi, to celebrate the holiday a day earlier, on April
25. Despite the mix-up, Columbus, Mississippi, is often credited as the
birthplace of Memorial Day, Gardiner said.
In one of his 2010 weekly addresses,
President Barack Obama said just that: "On April 25, 1866, about a year
after the Civil War ended, a group of women visited a cemetery in
Columbus, Mississippi, to place flowers by the graves of Confederate
soldiers who had fallen at Shiloh," he said.
Gardiner said, "I don't contest that. But the evidence is abundantly
clear that they were simply following what the newspaper had suggested
that they do." Rather, it was the women of Columbus, Georgia, who
thought of the idea, he said.

Flowers for all

On April 26, 1866, people across the South heeded Williams' letter and
threw flowers on the graves of Civil War soldiers. Some Southern women
noticed that Yankee graves, interspersed with the graves of their loved ones, sat untended, Gardiner said.
"They start to see these Union graves that are just laying there, kind
of barren," he said. "Their hearts are warmed. Their hearts start to
feel bad for the mothers who have lost these children. So, they start to
throw flowers on the Yankee graves. And then that story gets published
everywhere."
- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/54919-true-story-behind-first-memorial-day.html#sthash.01gkZPos.dpufThe following are copies of the service record of my paternal great-great grandfather and Confederate soldier Sergeant Jackson S. Roden, Company A, 48th Alabama Infantry Regiment, CSA.

Mr. Jackson Roden was born in Blount County, Alabama to Thomas L. Roden & Sevilla Roden in the year 1829. He was a poor farmer and a non-slaveowner. He had a wife: Nancy Jane Buchannan (Married in 1857); and two children: Lougany Isabell Roden (born in 1858) and my great-grandfather Thomas Benton Roden (born in 1860).

He would fight throwing rocks at the Yankee invaders in the railroad cut at the Battle of 2nd Manassas. Struggle through the smoke in the cornfields at Sharpsburg. Stand tall against the Federals at Fredericksburg -- where he would be wounded and miss the Battle of Chancellorsville and the unfortunate death of Stonewall Jackson. He would crawl through the rocks and the oppressive summer heat in Devils Den at the Battle of Gettsyburg -- now under General James Longstreet's command. Then finally he would travel to the west with the rest of Laws Brigade to help stop the Yankees with the Confederate Army of Tennessee at a place in northern Georgia called Chickamauga -- "The River of Death" -- where at the ripe old age of 34 he would be killed in battle along with just over 11,300 other brave Confederate soldiers killed and wounded between September 19 & 20, 1863.

His family was fortunate enough to have his body recovered and sent home to Alabama where Jackson was laid to rest beneath a tree in a family cemetery near Guntersville, Alabama.

Page 1 of my ancestor's service record. Courtesy State of Alabama Dept. of Archives

Page 2 of my ancestor's service record. Courtesy State of Alabama Dept. of Archives

Though I have never met him, nor even managed to find the time to take the long trek to northern Alabama from upstate South Carolina to visit his grave, nor even visited the battlefield and where he died over 153 years ago; I am proud of him for his service in defense of his home and native Southland. I am honored to be his descendant and proud to know that the same blood that spirit that helped him through battle lives on in me and my siblings and their children.

Someday soon -- probably in the next year or two, God willing when I have the financial means to do so -- I will take the trip to visit his grave in Alabama and visit the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park, and will of course chronicle the journey here at Southern Fried Common Sense.

Celebrating Confederate Memorial Day on May 10th

Every first Saturday in May, I open an old family trunk and pull out a folded medium Confederate gray wool uniform coat, pants and brown wide-brimmed hat (or a gray kepi cap). I carefully place a small black cockade with a weathered droopy-winged eagle button with the letters "AVC" sewn in the middle onto the right breast of the jacket. I usually just wear the replica uniform and no other military equipment save for a carpetbag haversack of a type used by soldiers at the time and maybe a belt with a square brass CSA buckle. After dressing up in period costume I get into my car and make a yearly trip to Columbia, South Carolina to attend an annual event sponsored by the South Carolina Divisions of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SC SCV) and United Daughters of the Confederacy (SC UDC) honoring over 18,600 Southern men and boys from my home state who -- like my great-great-grandfather -- in devotion to duty, fought and died in moral defense of home, family, native land, and Southern independence (in that order).

The weekends both before and after the 10th of May every year see dozens of large and small services across both Carolinas in honor of Confederate Memorial Day. These services include church services and speeches talking about the lives of those who came before us and why remembering them is important. Graves of the honored Confederate dead being cleared of weeds, cleaned and honored with fresh flowers and small Dixie Cross banners placed by men, women and children by the tombstones. "Widows" in period mourning attire setting black roses on stone cemetery walls, or local Confederate monuments. Rifle and cannon salutes fired over, or near the graves of the dead by reenactors clad in reproductions of the hallowed gray and butternut uniforms worn by the Confederate citizen soldier. More gray-clad reenactors sharing drinks from their canteens and cups over the headstones of the honored dead. Finally, several of these services continue, or conclude, with parades of Confederate descendants in uniform, period clothes (or just their plain Sunday best at times) marching to a drumbeat beneath one of the several types of Confederate battle flags and former Confederate national banners.

Confederate soldier reenactors of the 16th SC Color Guard preforming a "canteen ceremony" at the graves of Confederate dead inGreenville, South Carolina in May 2016.

To many living today -- especially those who have little knowledge of the history of Confederate Memorial Day and its origins -- the act of honoring soldiers who fought and died in a lost cause (and some would say an "unworthy" one, even a "treasonous" one) might seem a bit strange, perhaps even suspicious? So much pomp simply to honor men who lost a war? Why? To answer that question, I need to first tell y'all the story of the very first Confederate Memorial Day and the history of why it is celebrated on May 10th in North and South Carolina. The Significance of May 10th

The 10th of May is the date of two very significant major events in Southern-Confederate history.

The first event took place on Sunday, May 10, 1863, when Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson died from complications due to pneumonia eight days after he was shot and his left arm amputated during the Battle of Chancellorsville, VA. His tragic death (accidentally shot by some of his own soldiers in the confusion of night on the battlefield while scouting ahead and his staff being mistaken for Union cavalrymen) was a crippling blow to the Army of Northern Virginia, and is believed by many historians to be the turning point in the fortunes of Lee's Confederate army prior to the decisive Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863. The second event took place two years later on Wednesday, May 10, 1865 when Union cavalrymen raided a Confederate encampment near Irwinsville, Georgia and captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who was attempting to flee with his family and others to Texas to continue the fight. The capture and later imprisonment of Davis is considered by many of have been the official defeat of the Confederate government itself, despite the fact that the two main Confederate armies themselves surrendered the month before, and other Southern forces were surrendering to federal control. The Confederate States government in reality had already fallen apart and virtually ceased to exist by that point. Davis' capture itself was largely a formality, but a significant one for the Republican-controlled Union government. Only the former Confederate States of North and South Carolina recognize May 10th as Confederate Memorial Day. Other Southern States recognize the holiday both officially and unofficially on other days, the reason for which will be explained later in this post. In Honor Of The Confederate Dead

Southern ladies of the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus,Georgia decorating graves of the Confederate dead in April 1866.

At the end of the War in 1865, the women of the Soldier's Aid Society of Columbus, Georgia began the practice of caring for the graves of Confederate dead buried in Linwood Cemetery.

In the spring of 1866, Mrs. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Rutherford Ellis inspired by a novel she had been reading (The Initials by Baroness Jemima von Tautphoeus) which mentioned the custom of caring for the graves of dead heroes, suggested that a special day be set aside yearly in order to decorate Confederate soldiers' graves and honor them. Her suggestion was warmly received by the women of the Columbus Soldier' Aid Society, and they reorganized their group into the Ladies' Memorial Association.

Additionally, the secretary of the association,
Mrs. Mary Ann Williams was directed to author a letter inviting the ladies in every Southern state to join them in the
observance. The letter was written in March of 1866 and sent to all of
the principal cities in the South, including: Atlanta, Montgomery,
Memphis, Richmond, St. Louis, Alexandria, Columbia, New Orleans, and ect.

The women wrote, "We can keep alive the memory of debt we owe
[the fallen soldiers] by dedicating at least one day in each year, by
embellishing their humble graves with flowers. Therefore we beg the
assistance of the press and the ladies throughout the South to help us
in the effort to set apart a certain day to be observed."

Photograph showing the first Confederate Decoration Day officially being honored at Linwood Cemetery in Columbus, GA in April 1866.

On Thursday, April 26, 1866, tens of thousands of Southern women across Dixie commemorated the
first Confederate Memorial Day (then known as Confederate Decoration Day). However, some in the northernmost
portions of the Southland did not participate because their spring flowers were not
yet in bloom. Consequently, they selected dates later in the spring to
hold their first Confederate Memorial Days. For example, parts of
Virginia chose May 10, commemorating Stonewall Jackson's death. Near
Petersburg, VA, they chose June 9, the anniversary of a significant
battle there. Others opted for Confederate President Jefferson Davis'
birthday, June 3. By the end of the 19th century many
southern communities were observing the event, and the formation of the
Confederated Southern Memorial Association in Louisville, Kentucky, in
May 1900 led to the widespread adoption of Confederate Memorial Day across the South on various days.

Honoring Confederate Memorial Day In The 21st Century

The State of South Carolina honors Confederate Memorial Day on May 10th every year as an official State Holiday. The State of North Carolina flies a Confederate 1st National Banner ("The Stars & Bars") on top of its State Capitol Building for four hours that morning.

The
States of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida honors Confederate Memorial Day
on April 26th -- the historic date of the first Confederate Decoration
Day. The States of Mississippi honors Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday in April.

The
States of Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee honors Confederate
Memorial Day on June 3rd -- the date of Confederate President Jefferson
Davis' birthday (June 3, 1808).

The
States of Texas and Arkansas honors Confederate Heroes Day (also called
Confederate Memorial Day) on January 19th -- the date of Confederate
General Robert E. Lee's birthday (January 19, 1807).

The State of Virginia honors the Confederate dead on May 30th, usually in conjunction with US Memorial Day.

Despite the alleged "controversial" nature of displaying Confederate symbols and honoring the Southern dead from the War Between the States (1861-1865) in America today due to the widespread regressive hatred towards Southern-Confederate historical heritage, the practice of honoring the Confederate dead by some Confederate ancestors still bravely continues. Confederate graves and monuments are decorated with flags, flowers and memorial wreaths out of respect for the soldiers who died. Hundreds of smaller, but still significant, ceremonies by proud Confederate descendants still take place annually across the American Southland.

A reenactor places Dixie Cross banners on the graves of Confederate dead.

UDC members portraying grieving "widows"lay a memorial wreath at a Confederate marker.

Southern ladies wearing 19th century period attire.

A Southern boy paying respect to his Confederate ancestor.

A memorial wreath and flags placed at a Confederate Soldier's Monument in Lancaster, SC. May 2017.

A rifle volley fired over Confederate graves in honor of the dead.A soldier's salute.

SCV and UDC members - many reenactors in gray uniforms - marching in a parade carrying Southern banners through downtown Columbia, SC to the State Capitol grounds on May 6, 2017.

Young Southern ladies helping to decorate the graves of the Confederate dead.

Cannon salute during a Confederate Memorial Day servicein North Carolina in 2016.

Why do you ask?

Speaking as a proud descendant of one at least one of those men, I can tell you that it is not about honoring a war, or a "rebel" government, or even the causes of Southern secession. It is not even just about taking one day out of the year to publicly wearing itchy Confederate gray uniforms, waving Southern battle flags, special church services, or singing "Dixie".

It is about honoring the dead and our own link to those soldiers -- those recognized American Veterans -- many of whom share our last names. Their blood and courage are our birthrights. We honor them because they are family and there is no statue of limitations on respect, honor and love. They are a part of who we are, a link of where we came from. There is no forgetting that without losing your sense of who you are and where you are going.

Its as simple as that. No more and never less.

Deo Vindice!

Credit: Columbus State University Archives
Here's a trivia question for armchair historians: Was the first
Memorial Day celebrated in Columbus, Georgia, or Columbus, Mississippi?
According to strict calendric interpretation, Columbus, Mississippi,
celebrated the holiday first, on April 25, 1866, but only because
newspaper editors fudged the date, said Richard Gardiner, an associate
professor of history education at Columbus State University in Georgia,
and co-author of "The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday" (Columbus
State University, 2014).
Columbus, Georgia, where the concept of honoring the soldiers who died
in the American Civil War originated, celebrated it a day later, on
April 26, 1866, along with dozens of other cities, Gardiner said. [6 Civil War Myths, Busted]
Columbus, Mississippi, may have celebrated Memorial Day first, but
"what's not true is that they came up with the idea," Gardiner told Live
Science.
In fact, there are many contenders for where Memorial Day started. Some
say it started in Waterloo, New York, in 1866, and President Lyndon B.
Johnson even signed a proclamation
saying so in 1966. But historians have since discredited that claim,
Gardiner said. Still, some people still trumpet the claim, including the village of Waterloo itself.
Here's why: In the 1880s, a reporter interviewed a source who thought
that Waterloo celebrated the day in 1866, but the newspaper later ran a
correction saying it was actually 1868. Still, not every newspaper that
ran the story included the correction, leading some people to think that
Waterloo was the first to celebrate the holiday that Americans call
Memorial Day, Gardiner said.
Others, including David Blight, a professor of history at Yale
University, say the first Memorial Day happened in Charleston, South
Carolina, according to The New York Times.
On May 1, 1865, workmen honored and buried dead soldiers from the Union
Army at a racetrack that had been turned into a war prison, Blight told
The New York Times.
However, there's no evidence that this event sparked the national
holiday, Gardiner said. People have honored dead soldiers and decorated
their graves since the beginning of time, he added.
"It's not a question of who was the first person to decorate a grave," Gardiner said. "That does not create a holiday."

How Memorial Day started

Memorial Day's date has changed over the years, but the very first holiday was planned for April 26, 1866, in the wake of the American Civil War.
In January 1866, the Ladies' Memorial Association in Columbus, Georgia,
passed a motion agreeing that they would designate a day to throw
flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers buried at the cemetery,
Gardiner said.
However, the ladies didn't want this to be an isolated event, so Mary
Ann Williams, the group's secretary, wrote a letter and sent it to
newspapers all over the United States.
"You'll find that letter in dozens of newspapers," Gardiner said. "It
got out, and it was republished everywhere in the country."
In the letter, the ladies asked people to celebrate the war's fallen soldiers on April 26 — the day the bulk of Confederate soldiers surrendered in North Carolina in 1865.
"That's what many people in the South considered to be the end of the
war," Gardiner said. Even though Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered on April
9, "there were still90,000 people ready to fight. And until those
90,000 surrendered on April 26, the war was effectively still going on,"
Gardiner said. [Album: Faces and Injuries of the Civil War]
But the date wasn't printed correctly in every newspaper, which led
Columbus, Mississippi, to celebrate the holiday a day earlier, on April
25. Despite the mix-up, Columbus, Mississippi, is often credited as the
birthplace of Memorial Day, Gardiner said.
In one of his 2010 weekly addresses,
President Barack Obama said just that: "On April 25, 1866, about a year
after the Civil War ended, a group of women visited a cemetery in
Columbus, Mississippi, to place flowers by the graves of Confederate
soldiers who had fallen at Shiloh," he said.
Gardiner said, "I don't contest that. But the evidence is abundantly
clear that they were simply following what the newspaper had suggested
that they do." Rather, it was the women of Columbus, Georgia, who
thought of the idea, he said.

Flowers for all

On April 26, 1866, people across the South heeded Williams' letter and
threw flowers on the graves of Civil War soldiers. Some Southern women
noticed that Yankee graves, interspersed with the graves of their loved ones, sat untended, Gardiner said.
"They start to see these Union graves that are just laying there, kind
of barren," he said. "Their hearts are warmed. Their hearts start to
feel bad for the mothers who have lost these children. So, they start to
throw flowers on the Yankee graves. And then that story gets published
everywhere."
- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/54919-true-story-behind-first-memorial-day.html#sth

Thank you for your thoughts and insight on this topic. It is a well written article. I look forward to reading about your visit to your great-great grandfather's grave and the Chickamauga battlefield. Today's history revisionists sicken me with each attempt to sanitize the War of Northern Aggression by removing monuments to the brave men who spilled blood, sweat and tears, and to those who made the ultimate sacrifice fighting for what they believed in.

Author of several short science-fiction/fantasy stories and celebrated fanfiction author for various cartoon series and science fiction series, Mr. Roden has written over 40 stories under various pseudonyms; best noted for writing the award-winning Hey Arnold! fanfiction story:Arnold's Couch Confessionsin 2003.

Mr. Roden is currently working on his first full-length science fiction-fantasy novel, as well as several other writing projects.

He is a resident of Chester County, South Carolina, USA. (Profile written by: N. McRae - with love.)

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